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| | Headline: | Tyre Damage Leads to a Missed Podium in Portimao | Date: | 15/09/2009 | | Source: |  (Click Here for more details). |  | | | | | | Review: | Tyre Damage Leads to a Missed Podium in Portimao
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In Sunday‘s second race in Portugal, Claudia Hürtgen started from sixth place in the
#24 BMW ALPINA B6 GT3, only 0.3 seconds off the pole. In this, the fourth stop on the FIA‘s GT3
European Championship, she fought her way up to third place. After a clean hand-off to Csaba
Walter, and with only ten minutes left in the race, Csaba radioed the pits with tyre damage at
the left front, and had to dive into pit lane. The unplanned stop put the B6 GT3 back into tenth
place.
The sister B6 GT3, #25, driven by Klingmann and his new team colleague Matzke, was unable to
participate in qualifying due to technical problems in open practice. This forced them to start from
the last row. Rookie Martin Matzke managed to make up a number of places in the first few laps.
After the mandatory driver change, Jens Klingmann pushed the B6 GT3 up into fourth place. Two
laps from the end, #25 began to lose quite a bit of pace ,with Jens reporting the car very loose at
the rear. Jens got slower and slower, and just managed to carry the car to fifth place. Mechanics
diagnosed a completely worn out left rear tyre, to the point of showing the steel cords.
Having started from last on the grid, the pairing of Klingmann and Matzke charged up the field
with an aggressive drive to sixth place in Sunday‘s first race. Lying sixth themselves, Hürtgen and
Walter did not finish due to a minor technical defect, with a drive belt having slipped its pulley.
„We had some bad luck this weekend, but the performance of our BMW ALPINA B6 GT3 just keeps
getting better. Our team did a great job again,“ said team boss Andreas Bovensiepen.
The next pair of races take place in three weeks‘ time at the Circuit Paul Ricard on the 3rd of October,
2009.
See the ALPINA results Here
| | | Cars: | Alpina B6 GT3 (E63 (09 -)) | | | 3009 |  |
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